Tag: cancer

I had scarlet marks on the shoulders, so I wondered if I should be worried. The reason I was reminded of those was that I was half-naked, sweating in my chair, observing things so that my brain doesn’t collapse into dysfunction. The fan had stopped due to power cut and my Samsung Galaxy J2 had almost slipped into unconsciousness. It was sweltering hot and I started following my sweat beads out of boredom. Then, I noticed the marks. Red as molten prenatal daggers. Then, I decided to use up the remaining 11% of my phone’s charge and as I was flicking through the web, I googled my symptoms. Five signs that you have cancer – It said.
Fuuuuuck.

It’s still okay – I thought, at least it’s not in my testicles. Yet. I don’t have a problem with cancer, but I’d rather not have it. There’s nothing romantic about cancer unless you’re kissing Shailene Woodley in front of 50 people in Anne Frank’s house.

Talking about cancer, my mother would probably take that deal. Once she got a 6000 buck test and the reports declared – everything‘s normal. She was so disappointed she went for a second opinion which costed another fortune and gave the same result.

She then called Goldy’s dad, who is a chemist but who my mother has more faith in than she has in a doctor, and asked if there was, by any chance, a teeny tiny possibility of her having a disease. He said no, but my mother insisted so he asked her to take pomegranate juice twice a day.

“Didn’t I tell you? There was something wrong with me. “She told us later.

Anyway, I dismissed the very possibility of cancer. Why?2.

I read horoscope. There are only so many things you can do while taking a dump. I used to listen to radio, but since the birth of jio, I usually browse through news and stuffs. I read horoscopes too. Horoscope of today, of the year 2020, and which career suits my personality, and if a Sagittarius, by any chance, is the ideal match for a Capricorn. It never mentions death. Never says – Blah Blah Blah, and oh, maybe you’re dying today. It talks in hints. A few years ago, the newspaper horoscope asked me, for a whole month, to be careful on the road. Then, there was this Facebook post that promised to foretell exactly how one was going to die. The person had to type his name along with a few random letters and post it as a comment.

When I did it, it suggested accident as the cause of my death.

I have been so careful on roads since then. I avoid busy roads and walk on the extreme left of the footpaths. Sometimes you’d even find me in the hedges by the sidewalk, hacking my way through, plodding carefully to avoid any truck that might be running in the bushes. With trucks, and Salman’s driver’s car, you can’t take any chances. A National Highway runs through my city and the newspapers often publish the reports of entire huts getting trampled by insane trucks, killing everybody inside. Imagine you are cooking Biryani in your home and an 8-wheeler drops out of nowhere and squashes you like a lemon. That’s a nasty way to die. At least you get to see a hospital in cancer, and your body remains intact, in a single piece. As my stars suggest, when I die, I’d probably be lying in pieces, bloodied and cold.

So I had to dismiss cancer. 3.

When I decided I didn’t have cancer, I felt kind of lonely. I am so single that even a disease won’t go out with me. Roads reminded me of Heer, and something crossed my mind, and this was the funny thing. I would always ask her to get on my left when we were walking. I thought it would be safer for her. The bikes would often graze my sleeve, and I’d almost wet my pants, but I’d keep her on my left anyway.

Things you do for love!

Thinking of her made me even sadder. I needed to eat. When I’m sad, I eat in tonnes. I wanted to be locked with food, and AC.

I was drenched now. Delhi is a shitty place, I tell you. And if you ever build a house make sure you don’t build it like my apartment. The heat was unbearable, so were the memories.

I thought about Doctor and all the possible dots on earth where she could be. I was bored so I typed her name on Google and clicked search. It talked about the word origin and its meaning and NGOs by her name. I memorized the names and purpose of a few organizations.

​Indians are gung ho about Christmas. No matter which religion they belong to, they always forward that Happy Christmas message to everybody in their whatsapp contact, even if they don’t give a monkey’s fart about the well being or happiness of the person. Today, my inbox crashed with such messages. I was irked. I mean yeah it’s good to see communal harmony and all, but nobody sends me a Happy Ganesh Chathurti or Happy Eid or Happy Kinky Copenhagen. People are so flashy these days, they care only about dazzling, boombazzling festivals. People like the blinking lights, and so Christmas is the gala day for them.

Maybe I am being a moaning minnie, but I don’t like people who send me these festive texts. There’s no point to it.

Anyway, I replied all of them and switched off the data connection. Last year, we had gone – full family – to watch Bajirao Mastani, and I’d blogged about the couple who broke up in the cinema theatre. This time, it’s Dangal; I don’t like Amir Khan that much. Last year, we went to the Pearl too, where we had an expensive VAT infested dinner, which I’m sure my father still remembers with a pinch of regret. This year, I stayed home.

Well. Except for when Sumit barged in and we went to Atif’s. He bought cigarette with my money once again. This guy is going to feature in Sponge and Mukesh ads soon, of course as a dead body. And this wasn’t even the worse thing about today. The worst ordeal was watching Fan.

Maybe I really have weird tastes, or maybe filmmakers have gone wacky these days, there are so many stupid movies flowing in that it feels like a national tragedy. And why the hell SRK gives a nod to such offers is beyond the little scope of my brain. What’s more baffling is that Doctor absolutely adores that guy. She goes all dewy-eyed when we talk about SRK.

Fan had so many logical loopholes that you could have left your brain at home before watching it.

Anyway, it got better at night. As the world slept, I woke up listening to Tulsi Kumar. The lyrics were dedicated to her love, and she was asking him to come back. Bullshit. But beautiful.